Moth

Moths are all representatives of butterflies that do not belong to the diurnal moths. Moths are a group assembled according to the way of life and practical considerations, they do not form a natural unit (no taxon) in modern biological systematics. The moths, colloquially but technically incorrectly also called moths (moths in the biological sense refers to various small butterfly families), have traditionally been divided into the large butterflies or Macrolepidoptera and the small butterflies or Microlepidoptera. However, these groups also do not form natural units. Modern butterfly systematics instead distinguishes four suborders, the Zeugloptera, Aglossata, Heterobathmiina, and Glossata, with more than 99 percent of species, including all butterflies and all large butterflies, belonging to the Glossata.

The group of moths, as a systematic group traditionally also called Heterocera ("miscellaneous horns"), is, as a non-natural group, still often used and retained today for purely pragmatic reasons. The largest collection of moths worldwide can be found in the Museum Witt in Munich.

Delimitation

By no means are all moths actually nocturnal, the rams, for example, fly only in sunshine. The following characteristics are traditionally used to distinguish them.

• Formation of antennae: The antennae of the butterflies are thickened at the end to a club, therefore formerly called Rhopalocera or "button horns" (exception: the thick-headed butterflies). In moths all possible antenna shapes are realized, often filiform, serrate or pinnate. However, there are also families with button-shaped antennae.
• Colouration: Day butterflies are often brightly coloured and variegated. Most moths are camouflaged, often brown, gray or whitish. Again, there are numerous exceptions.
• Coupling of the wings: Most moths have a special mechanism by which the forewings and hindwings are coupled together in flight. Here, a bristle called a frenulum engages a device called a retinaculum, which consists of hooks. This is missing in butterflies. In them, the forewings and hindwings overlap broadly (called "amplexiform" coupling) and are thus coupled. However, there are a number of moths without a frenulum.
• Resting posture: Most day butterflies leave the wings spread apart in resting posture (outside of the flight phases), often laid over the back like a flag. Most moths fold the wings in towards the body at the wing joint, so that they are tilted together like a roof over the abdomen or spread flat on the back.
• Shape of the forelegs: In some families of diurnal butterflies the forelegs are small and sometimes reduced; they are put on or stretched forward when sitting, and are no longer used for walking. This occurs less frequently in moths.
• Shape of the pupa: In most moths the pupal stage is enclosed in a cocoon consisting of silk threads. Day butterflies have free pupae, which either hang freely anchored at the hind end with hooks (fall pupae) or are attached by a thin silk band (girdle pupae).

Traditional systematics

Butterflies are very striking insects and have thus attracted the attention of naturalists for centuries. The first scientifically based classification came from the founder of biological taxonomy, Carl von Linné. On the basis of the shape of the antennae, the position of the wings at rest and the day or night activity, he distinguished three groups (which he called genera): Papilio with all the day butterflies, Sphinx and Phalaena with the moths. The very large and heterogeneous genus Phalaena (which, unlike the other two, is now taxonomically out of use), he divided into seven groups. Linné's nine groups of butterflies are, in principle, still in use today as superfamilies: Papilionoidea for Papilio, Sphingoidea for Sphinx and Bombycoidea, Noctuoidea, Geometroidea, Tortricoidea, Pyraloidea, Tineoidea and Alucitoidea for the seven groups of Phalaena.

Linné's students and successors, especially Johann Christian Fabricius and Pierre André Latreille, expanded his system, but did not initially change the basic categories due to his high authority. The work of Gottlieb August Herrich-Schäffer (1799-1874) became significant for higher systematics. The systematics based on Herrich-Schäffer and other taxonomists of the 19th century remained binding until the early 20th century.

According to classical, now obsolete systematics, the term Heterocera was used for the moths either for all of them, or for the "Phalaenae" (which corresponded to Linné's "genus" Phalaena, but often included the "Sphinges", i.e. Linné's genus Sphinx); both were more or less what were colloquially called moths.

The moths comprise about 91 percent of the butterfly species (the superfamily Papilionoidea, which includes the small family Hedylidae of the "moths" in addition to all the day moths, the other 9 percent). There are 118 families involved. The moths include the following families, among others:

• Bear moth (Arctiidae)
• Black moth (Endromidae)
• Owl butterfly (Noctuidae)
• Window spot (Thyrididae)
• Glugas (Lasiocampidae)
• Meadow moth (Lemoniidae)
• Peacock moth (Saturniidae)
• Sicklewing (Drepanidae)
• Processionary moth (Thaumepoeidae)
• Gypsy moth (Lymantriidae)
• Hawkmoth (Sphingidae)
• Peeping Tom (Geometridae)
• Aries (Zygaenidae)
• Tooth moth (Notodontidae)